I am so tired! My feet hurt like fire! Working a government job is no easy task. Nursing at the treatment center, admitting patients every day.
Patients are so sick mentally and physically and those coming in are sicker every day. Some have criminal histories, do we turn them away no! We take them in and do our best to help their mental illness and their dependencies.
Now they say we don’t deserve a raise, Dang! Who are they going get to take care of the mentally ill? Help the folks addicted to drink and drugs
Who they going find who helps the folks nobody want?
They want to hide these folks, not see them talk to themselves on the street corners. Not worry they might become dangerous! They don’t want to see them lying drunk in the street. Families don’t want to be afraid, that Johnny will kill them in their sleep.
They want them treated humanely, with dignity. So nurses take care of Johnny, nurses get hurt instead of the family, hurt regularly, and paid poorly.
Mentally ill and chemically dependent people are modern day lepers. Treatment centers are a haven for mentally vulnerable and those with self-destructive urges. The nurses work short-handed the stress levels so high the angels of mercy are coming unglued. Nurses need medicine to thwart depression, deal with anxiety.
Damn it my feet hurt! How can it be when according to the government we don’t work hard?
Missed my lunch again and my diabetes, acting up. But I don’t deserve lunch breaks I had nothing to do.
I noticed that the nurses working 2 miles away make $5,000 more a year then I do. We can’t keep staff so everyone works short, works hard! Did you know all part-time LPN’s and HST’s only get one weekend a month off.
AFSME the union that is negotiating the new contract is frustrated, with the State of Minnesota’s proposals. The State wants to charge these angels of mercy more for insurance, and limit pay increases already way behind the community standards. I want to work here; I like working with these folks. Still, I am considering a new job. I am a nurse for the patients but my bills need paying like anyone else’s. What am I to do?